It has become the common practice for hay cut from the fields to be collected into round--ie. cylindrical --bales. Such bales are typically 1.5 meters in diameter, and 1.5 meters long. The bales weigh 500 kg or so.
The bales have to be disintegrated in some way before the hay can be used, for example for feeding animals. There are a number of devices presently available for disintegrating the bales.
It is possible in some circumstances to disintegrate a bale of hay simply by unrolling the bale. Unfortunately, the bale will only unroll easily if the hay is dry. Also, merely unrolling the hay tends to leave the hay in large strands and clumps, with the result that the animals have some difficulty in assimilating the hay.
Machines have been developed therefore for shredding the hay from the bale. The shredding action prepares the hay for the animals much more effectively than merely unrolling the bale. The shredding action is provided by a rotary cutter which engages against the bale, and tears the hay from the bale. The invention is directed to a new manner of manipulating the bale within the shredding machine.